National Dreams: Myth, Memory, and Canadian History

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University, the
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom,
and the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste. Marie.

Historians in the United States and Germany have long taken delight in
publishing books that describe how evil their compatriots have always
been. Falling within that tradition is this well-researched, thoughtful
revisionist history of Canada in which the author reviews—and then
debunks—the conventional wisdom presented by school textbooks and
popular writers, including Pierre Berton and Michael Valpy. Francis
limits his study to the myths of historians who wrote in English.

The Canadian Pacific Railway, he writes, “was built chiefly on the
backs of Chinese coolie labour, using land obtained for almost nothing
from the Indians and capital raised for the most part in Britain.” The
Mounted Police collaborated with the repressive Borden and Bennett
governments by spying on law-biding Canadians who were members of
visible minorities or left-wing in their politics.

Schools and textbooks celebrated Canada as a British country.
Aboriginals were usually portrayed as savage people who stood in the way
of progress. Injustices toward Jews and Japanese were minimized, while
the achievements of the French and French Canadians were “ignored or
belittled.” Madelaine de Verchиres and Laura Secord were exceptions
to the exclusion of women from the history books.

This interesting study merits the attention of scholars of Canadian
history.